Diet aids may harm the young

Giving dietary supplements to babies and young children in developing countries may do harm than good, according to an expert on nutrition.

Dr Roger Whitehead, from the Medical Research Council's Dunn Nutrition Unit at Cambridge University, warned that providing supplements might interfere with a child's ability to subsist on its local diet later in life.

He pointed out an increasing body of scientific opinion suggesting that diet in early life "programmes" people's bodies to future needs.

Most people in the Third World are living on diets which appear totally inadequate, Dr Whitehead said. Yet, except in times of famine, they seem to cope.

Giving children vitamin and mineral supplements guided by what is thought appropriate in developed countries may prevent them from developing the efficiencies of metabolism required for the diet they can expect later, he said.